1. Technical Field
This disclosure is directed to integrated circuits, and more particularly, to voltage regulators having circuits for sensing instantaneous load current.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the integrated circuit (IC) features sizes have decreased, the number of functions integrated on new ICs has increased. For example, a system-on-a-chip (SoC) may include multiple processor cores, a graphic processing unit, various interface circuits, and so forth. Some SoCs (as well as other types of ICs) may also implement a voltage regulator on the same die as the other functional units. The voltage regulator may provide power to various ones of the functional units. In some cases, the voltage regulator may provide multiple voltages to different functional units via different power nodes.
Each of the different functional units of an IC may place various current demands on the voltage regulator in accordance with their respective workloads. In some cases, if the voltage regulator is unable to fully meet the current demanded by a particular functional block, a voltage droop may occur on the power node supplying power to that particular functional block. Bulk capacitance between the power node and a reference (e.g., ground) node may supply some of the current, and eventually, may cause the voltage to return to a value within its specified range.